e
subdivided into so many portions, and given over to so many objects? But
the unvarying testimony is that no nurses accomplish more than the
German deaconesses. No matter how busy they may be, the effort is made
for each to have a quiet half hour for meditation and private devotion.
Every afternoon the chapel is opened for this purpose, and all the
sisters who can be spared meet here. A hymn is sung, and afterward each
spends the time as she will in meditation, reading the Bible or silent
prayer, the quietness and stillness being unbroken by words. The "Stille
halbe Stunde," as it is called, is greatly prized by the sisters, and is
observed by them in all their institutions, and in all lands. There are
Bible-classes and prayer-meetings for the deaconesses during the week,
and the first Sunday of every month there is a special service of prayer
and thanksgiving for all sisters, all the affiliated houses, and similar
homes wherever they exist. Fliedner prepared a book of daily Bible
readings for the use of the sisters, and a hymn-book, used in all the
Kaiserswerth institutions at home and abroad. "We have no vows," he
said, "and I will have no vows, but a bond of union we must have, and
the best bond is the word of God, and our second bond is singing."[37]
The sisters of each house meet together to give their votes for the
admission of new deaconesses and the election of the superintendents.
Each deaconess is expected to obey those who are placed over her, and to
accept the kind of work assigned her, except in the case of contagious
diseases, when her permission is asked. What a tribute it is to these
women that such a refusal has never yet been known! Every effort is made
to harmonize the right of the individual with the needs of the whole
body, a marked characteristic of the Protestant sisters of charity.

When a probationer becomes a deaconess she is consecrated to her work by
a service the main features of which it may be well to indicate. They
are as follows:

Singing. Address commending the deaconesses for acceptance. Address to
the deaconesses, recalling the ever-repeated thought, "You are servants
in a threefold sense: servants of the Lord Jesus; servants of the needy
for Jesus' sake; servants one of another." Then, having answered the
question, "Are you determined to fulfill these duties truly in the fear
of the Lord, and according to his holy will?" the candidate kneels and
receives the benediction: "May the T